just a girl finding her way

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The Key to Happiness…

I’ve always thought that happiness was something we all had to find and strive for. I thought happiness was found in cute shoes and cute boys or in beautiful vacations and in other people. I thought happiness was getting what I wanted but that’s not true.

I decided to be happy because of those wonderful things. No inanimate object or person or event has the power to make you happy or unhappy. You choose to let those things affect your happiness or unhappiness. I let a beautiful dress make me happy meanwhile I’m actually just deciding to be happy because of a dress. Do you see the difference? The actual piece of fabric didn’t bring me happiness—I decided to be happy because of it.

I always just had a default emotion that was neutral or slightly unhappy. I stuck to that unless I had a reason to be happy. My reasons to be happy weren’t always present and because of that I spent a lot of time being unhappy or just barely content. I thought I had no particular reason to be happy but I didn’t have a particular reason to not be, either.

Why do we need reasons to be happy? The truth is…we don’t. For 2015 I want to truly try to just be happy for no real reason. When you’re happy without reason, no one can ever take that from you. If you rely on a friend to make you happy, what happens when they’re not around? If you rely on a job to make you happy, what happens if you lose it?

I feel like I’m being confusing but the message I’m trying to get across is quite simple. We decide to be happy. Only we can control our happiness. Sometimes life sucks but we don’t have to allow things to make us unhappy.

Nothing can affect our happiness unless we let it. We need to choose to be happy in the face of crappy situations. As I write this I’m entirely a hypocrite. I have always believed that something will make me happy.

Getting a boyfriend will make me happy! Being fit and thin will make me happy! Getting this internship will make me happy! A puppy will make me happy! A new phone will make me happy!

Although these things did make it easier to be happy, they were not happiness. The wonderful things we achieve or obtain are not happiness. An inanimate object cannot make you happy, you decide to make yourself happy because you have what you want.

What if we don’t have things that we think make us happy? Should we just be unhappy? I don’t think so anymore. I think deciding to just be happy for no reason is the best thing anyone can do for themselves.

Being happy for a reason means someone can take it away but being happy purely just to be happy, although difficult at times, is the best because no one can take away simple happiness.

Sometimes life deals us a crappy hand of cards but you know what? We decide how we play them.

So when life’s not going the way you want it to, just be happy or at least fake it ‘till you make it. Remember that you control your happiness. A job, a boyfriend, education—none of that controls your happiness. You do.